Looks like a MS skype deal may be well in the works. What will this mean for Linux users?

I guess we can forget further development for the Linux platform. I recently got the googleTalk plugin for their chat client, but haven't had a chance to test it yet. I can't see googleTalk taking off unless it becomes an automatic addon to gtalk.

- M$ will release an iOS client, planning to play for market share until Windows 7 dominates then pull support for iOS.

- M$ will release a buggy Android client, claiming they will fix it but after not very long they will say that the Android ecology makes it impossible to do business and then pull it.

- M$ will give Nokia the impression that they will release a Symbian client, but it will never quite happen.

- Google will release a competitor that plays nicely with Android (i.e. with the big mobile telco's OS of choice) and with BlackBerry and even with iOS.

- M$ will desperately block Google VoIP from Windows 7 and break inter-OS calling but that will just lose W7 market share. Meanwhile Apple will do their own awesomely shiny VoIP thing and desperately block Google VoIP from iOS but because they allow inter-OS calling nobody except a few FOSS diehards will notice.

- Eventually Skype will all but die, just like Bing, and Google VoIP will dominate, in the guise of a thousand different brands.

"Klinger, do you know how many zoots were killed to make that one suit?" — BJ Hunnicutt, 4077 M*A*S*H

- M$ will give Nokia the impression that they will release a Symbian client, but it will never quite happen.

Here's my take...
Stephen Elop, the new M$ trojan horse CEO of Nokia, will quickly phase out Symbian with Windows OS phones. Nokia does badly. M$ buys Nokia for a very reasonable price. Accuses everyone of using Nokia patents to extort money from any one they can.

I wonder how long it'll be before someone releases a phone without any traditional voice-calling facility at all. Something like Amazon's Whispernet but with VOIP capabilities too (via Skype or whatever).

(I know there are already such 'Skype phones' but they're currently targeted at the low end of the market)

Seems like something Apple would be best equipped to do, with them controlling the hardware and having the muscle to steam-roll the network providers a bit (because they're not going to be keen on everything going data-only).

Maybe MS want to do this (seems unlikely given they have virtually no market share) or maybe they just want to stop Apple from doing it, forcing them to invent their own VOIP tech.

I think google already have a SIP gateway in place with their google-talk/jabber stuff? I vaguely remember them announcing something to do with calling real phone numbers from google talk.